Some Kind of Normal

They were asking questions, and some of them I knew, others I didn’t. I told them about Trevor’s brain injury and the seizure he’d had a few weeks earlier. They asked about medication, and I thought of the small bottle I’d seen at the cottage, but again I wasn’t sure. They wanted to know where we were from and where his parents were, what his blood type was, his age, any other pertinent medical history.

He was a boy I liked. A boy I thought that maybe I was falling in love with. I knew that and not much else. Pretty pathetic.

And then they said they were taking him to the hospital.

By this time Trevor was coming out of it, but nothing he said made any sense, and that terrified me. Alone and afraid, I scooped my cell from my purse and hit the first saved number.

When he picked up on the second ring, I could barely speak. My teeth were chattering, and I was shivering so badly that I nearly dropped my cell. “Dad, are you in Baton Rouge?”

There was a long pause, and by this time I was crying again. I was crying so hard that I could barely see, and I scrubbed at my face, tearing hair from my eyes as I tried to keep up with the EMTs.

“Everly, are you okay? Where’s your mother?”

But I wasn’t okay. I was so far from okay that I didn’t think I’d ever find my way back. “No, no, I’m not. I’m in Baton Rouge, and I need you.”

“Calm down.” He didn’t hesitate, and his warmth crept through the phone. “Tell me exactly where you are, sweets. Everything is going to be all right.”

“I’m down near the river, by the Buffalo Bakery. They’re taking Trevor to the hospital, but I can’t ride in the ambulance and I don’t think I can drive and I think he just had another seizure and I don’t…I don’t know what to do.”

“I’m less than a minute away, Everly. Hold on.”

And he was. His warm arms were around me, and he gathered me in close, murmuring things I couldn’t really understand. By this time I was nearly incoherent, so I didn’t take the time to ask the questions. Or wonder about the fact that I spied Kirk Davies, his old college friend, watching us from a few feet away.

I would wonder about them, but those things could come later.

Chapter Twenty-three

Trevor

I woke up in a hospital. I knew this for a couple of reasons.

First, the smell. It’s horrid as hell, and no matter what hospital you’re in, it’s the same. It’s a smell of death and sickness and puke, and the heavy disinfectants they use to try and cover it all up just makes it worse.

Second, I heard my mom crying. Well, I heard my mom sniffling like she was trying to hide the fact that she was crying, which was almost worse than just getting it all out. I guess she thought that the softer her cries were, the better it was for me, but honestly, the fact that she was there at all made me feel like crap.

Also? My mouth was dry and I would just about kill for an ice chip.

I lay there for a few moments, not opening my eyes, wanting those few seconds to get my thoughts straight in my head. I wish that I could say I remembered what happened. But I don’t. I don’t remember a damn thing other than a pain in my head and…and Everly.

I must have groaned or made some other pathetic noise, because the sniffling stopped and then my mom was there, hovering over me like she used to do back in the day. Back when I was somewhere in that place between life and death.

I used to hate that. Waking up and seeing her there. Knowing it was all my fault, and right now, I felt exactly the same. God, she must be sick of this, because I sure as hell was.

“Trevor?”

I tried to sit up, but her hands were on my chest and she was smoothing hair from my face. “Water?”

She knew the drill, but then I guess there’re some things you can’t forget no matter how much you try. She grabbed a cup from beside the bed, unwrapped a straw, and once I was elevated a bit, held the cup in front of me like I was a baby with no idea how to hold the stupid thing.

But I wasn’t a baby. I was a pissed-off seventeen-year-old, so I acted like one. I grabbed the cup from her and managed to spill half of the damn thing before I got it to my mouth.

“Be careful,” she said.

Once my throat was lubricated, I decided to try and speak. This was always a bit tricky, because I wasn’t so sure that what came out of my mouth would even make sense. But I had to try. I had to know.

“Where’s Everly?”

My voice sounded rough, but I got the right words out. Another win for the pathetic Trevor Lewis.